to: include certain serious criminal offences as a new category of ‘prescribed offence’ for the purposes of the automatic disqualification regime in relation to registered organisations; establish an offence for a disqualified person to continue to act as an official or in a way that influences the affairs of an organisation; allow the Federal Court to prohibit officials from holding office in certain circumstances or if they are otherwise not a fit and proper person; allow the Federal Court to cancel the registration of an organisation on a range of grounds; allow applications to be made to the Federal Court for a range of other orders; expand the grounds on which the Federal Court may order remedial action to deal with governance issues in an organisation; expressly provide that the Federal Court may appoint an administrator to an organisation or part of an organisation as part of a remedial scheme; introduce a public interest test for amalgamations of registered organisations; and make minor and technical amendments.

to: remove restrictions on employees’ rights to disclose the amount of, or information about, their pay or earnings; and prohibit employers from taking adverse action against employees for disclosing this information.

to require employers to pay a base rate of pay, full rate of pay and any casual loading that is not less than the relevant award or national minimum wage for employees covered by an enterprise agreement.

to remove the requirement that certain small businesses pay penalty rates unless the work is performed on a weekend and is in addition to 38 hours of work over a seven day period, is in addition to ten hours of work in a 24 hour period, or is performed on a public holiday.

to: clarify the application of the Act to migrants; require Fair Work Information Statements to contain certain information; provide additional protection from adverse action in certain circumstances; introduce a ‘reasonable person’ test in determining whether an employer has engaged in sham contracting; enable the court to make orders requiring directors of phoenix companies to pay amounts owed by failed companies and orders disqualifying certain persons from managing corporations; increase maximum penalties for certain breaches of the Act; and introduce new offences for serious contraventions of the Act that involve the use of coercion or threats; and

to: ensure that modern awards cannot be varied to reduce penalty rates or the hours to which penalties rates apply if the variation is likely to result in a reduction in the take-home pay of an employee; and provide that any such determination made by the Fair Work Commission made on or after 22 February 2017 is of no effect.

to respond to recommendations of the Productivity Commission’s final report into the Workplace Relations Framework by: removing the requirement for the Fair Work Commission (FWC) to conduct 4 yearly reviews of modern awards from the beginning of 1 January 2018; and enabling the FWC to overlook minor procedural or technical errors when approving an enterprise agreement, if it is satisfied that those errors were not likely to have disadvantaged employees; and

Report of Inquiry into Complaints about the Honourable Vice President Michael Lawler of the Fair Work Commission and Related Matters

by applying the complaint-handling powers of the Minister for Employment and the President of the FWC to FWC members who formerly held office in the Australian Industrial Relations Commission, and applying the

to: provide that modern awards cannot be varied to reduce penalty rates or the hours to which penalties rates apply if the variation is likely to result in a reduction in the take-home pay of an employee; and provide that any such determination made by the Fair Work Commission made on or after 21 June 2017 is of no effect.